Watch Terriers

Watch Terriers.

Like, right now.

If you haven't heard of Terriers, you're not alone.  Universally lauded by critics and its small but dedicated audience, the FX show about gritty private investigators never quite caught on; it had a poor advertising campaign, a confusing title, and a premise without a "hook."  As Abigail Nussbaum writes in her blog, the most you can do to entice someone to watch Terriers concisely is to say, "It's really good."

No. It is not.

Some combination of these factors led the show to regrettably be cancelled by FX, and we'll never get to enjoy the future adventures of Hank and Britt.

Now forget every word I just said and go watch Terriers, and enjoy every moment of it.  The fact that it's cancelled should not deter you in any way from watching this wonderful show.

It's hard to find a reason not to like Terriers, really.  It's funny, but never obnoxious.  It has an engaging season long plot, but makes time for truly interesting and surprising weekly cases.  It's meaningful, but never pretentious.  For a lot of shows, this might sound like too much to handle, but Terriers ties it all back to some of the most wonderfully realized characters of recent years and makes the drama feel so very powerful.

The characters of Hank and Britt, played by Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James (who are both impeccable across the season), feel more fully realized than the majority of characters on other shows with many seasons under their belt.  Everyone involved, from the actors, to the writers, to the directors, have a wonderfully clear vision of who these men are, what motivates them, and how they react to the world around them.

Need more reason to justify a commitment to a show that only has one season?  It ends well.  While it is open-ended enough  to see that more seasons were clearly envisioned for the show (which likely would have seamlessly connected to this one), the resolution to the season-long plot is satisfying.  Without spoiling too much, whatever cliffhanger does exist doesn't exactly feel like one.  It feels more like a foregone conclusion given how well we have grown to know these characters.  It's a testament to the capacity of Terriers to respect its audience's intelligence, and why it deserved more viewers.  

So, please, if you haven't heard of it before, or haven't really considered watching Terriers, you really should.  At 13 episodes, it won't eat away as much of your time as most shows, while being far more unpredictable and riveting.  

It still hurts that it got cancelled, but these things heal, with time.